"Two former top commanders at Lieber Correctional Institution allege state officials labeled them scapegoats for an inmate's notorious prison break last summer.

Former Warden Joseph McFadden and Associate Warden James Blackwell said they were unfairly blamed and disciplined after Jimmy Causey broke through a fence with wirecutters thought to have been delivered by drone — an element of the July escape that made national headlines.

Neither employee was on duty at the time, and a later audit of the maximum-security Ridgeville prison found only "trivial" shortcomings in paperwork and housekeeping, the separate lawsuits filed by the men Tuesday in Dorchester County say."